ModelRefs / o4 Mini vs Claude Sonnet 4 — Benchmarks, Pricing & Coding C…
o4 Mini vs Claude Sonnet 4 — Benchmarks, Pricing & Coding C…
o4 Mini vs Claude Sonnet 4: side-by-side benchmarks, pricing, context windows, coding ability and deployment. Pick the right model for your stack.
Overview
Claude Sonnet 4: Claude Sonnet 4 is Anthropic's May 2025 hybrid-reasoning model for coding, visual reasoning, tool use, and agent workflows. The dated claude-sonnet-4-20250514 snapshot was retired on Anthropic-operated platforms on June 15, 2026 and is retained as a historical evaluation and migration reference.
o4 Mini: o4 Mini is OpenAI's next-generation efficient reasoning model adding vision support to the mini reasoning tier. It is optimized for agentic tasks requiring both image understanding and step-by-step logic at low cost-per-task.
Context window: Claude Sonnet 4 accepts up to 200,000 tokens, o4 Mini up to 200,000. Confirm the limit for your specific deployment channel before relying on it.
Claude Sonnet 4 vs o4 Mini at a glance
| Attribute | Claude Sonnet 4 | o4 Mini |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Anthropic | OpenAI |
| Released | 2025-05-22 | 2025-09-01 |
| Context window | 200,000 tokens | 200,000 tokens |
| Input price | $3/M tokens | $1.1/M tokens |
| Output price | $15/M tokens | $4.4/M tokens |
| Licence | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Self-hostable | No, hosted only | No, hosted only |
| Modalities | text, vision | text, vision |
Benchmarks reported for both
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4 | o4 Mini | Reported |
|---|---|---|---|
| gpqa | 75.4 | 77.6 | 2025-05-22 |
Scores are as published by their cited sources on the dates shown. Different runs use different harnesses, prompts, and dates, so treat these as directional evidence rather than a head-to-head result.
Where they differ most
- Cost Efficiency: Claude Sonnet 4 37%, o4 Mini 63%. o4 Mini leads on this dimension.
- Reasoning: Claude Sonnet 4 73%, o4 Mini 78%. o4 Mini leads on this dimension.
Capability scores are ModelRefs' own derived signals, not vendor claims or benchmark results. Validate against your own workload before relying on them.
Continue your research
Use these connected ModelRefs sections to compare alternatives, inspect implementation paths, and review the evidence and governance boundaries relevant to o4 Mini vs Claude Sonnet 4 — Benchmarks, Pricing & Coding C….
Frequently asked questions
Which is better, o4 Mini or Claude Sonnet 4?
o4 Mini and Claude Sonnet 4 target different workloads — see the benchmark and pricing tables for a side-by-side answer.
Is o4 Mini cheaper than Claude Sonnet 4?
Compare $0.00110 vs $0.00300 on this page.